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February 24, 2011 Board Meeting DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND 911 COMMUNICATIONS 230 Government Center Drive, Suite 115 Wilmington, North Carolina 28403 Telephone (910) 798-6920 Fax (910) 798-6925 wlee@nhcgov.com Warren Lee Director Memorandum To: Public Safety Communications Center Policy Board Members From: Warren Lee, Director Subject: February 24, 2011 Board Summary Date: March 1, 2011 A Public Safety Communications Center Policy Board meeting was held on Thursday, February 25, 2011 at 10:00 AM in the Emergency Operation Center, 220 Government Center Drive, Wilmington, North Carolina. MEMBERS PRESENT: MEMBERS ABSENT: Frank Blackley Leslie Stanfield Sterling Powell Harold Heglar Warren Lee Kurt Bartley Donnie Hall Dennis Cooper Andre’ Mallette Jerry Brewer Michael Core Jon Rorie Cynthia Deacon William Younginer Sharon Braxton Donny Williams Guests Debora Cottle, Emerg. Management/9-1-1 Dorian Flowers, New Hanover County Fire Mary Smith, Wilmington Police Dept. Carla Bradshaw, Wilmington Police Dept. Mike Cavaluzzi, Motorola/Wireless Jason Adams, Motorola/Wireless Susan Rossiter, Emerg. Management/9-1-1 Donna Smith, Wilmington Police Dept. Chairman Blackley called the meeting to order at 10:05a.m. Chairman Blackley asked if everyone had signed in. Chairman Blackley asked if everyone had a chance to review the minutes from December 2, 2010 and if there were any questions, comments, changes or corrections. There were not any. Chairman Blackley asked if there was a motion to approve. Warren Lee made a motion and Sterling Powell seconded. All in favor; none opposed. Motion passed. OLD BUSINESS: School Coverage Chairman Blackley stated that Jerry Brewer wasn’t present; could Jason update everyone on the school coverage issue. Jason said that they had to do a walk through to coordinate with a school representative. Chairman Blackley asked if Jason could follow up with that and he stated he would. City and County Fire AVL Chairman Blackley stated that the AVL had a 1 mile radius from the incident. OSSI has been asked if that was in road miles or a straight line. They have not had a response yet. Sharon said that she would call to check on that for everyone. Sharon said that someone from OSSI will be down to test this sometime in April but there is not a date set yet. If anyone is interested, please let her know. Mary Smith stated that Wilmington Police still have issues with AVL; all officers can see other units’ positions in AVL. Some of the machines are freezing up for 10 to 15 minutes. Some people deal with the freeze up, some unplug it or others refresh. Some officers have figured out which keystrokes to use to view all units. Sharon has stated they have an update to fix this; this should be done since this is a supervisor function. NEW BUSINESS 9-1-1 Surcharge Fund Expenditures Chairman Blackley asked if Andre’ could explain the recent spending in the surcharge funds and how it was distributed. Andre’ passed out the interoffice notice from Cam Griffin in Budget. There was an audit done on the funds in each of the agencies in North Carolina by the NC 9-1-1 Board. After the audit was complete, the 9-1-1 Board determined there was an excess of funds in some of the agencies accounts. The NC General Assembly allowed agencies to spend one-half of what was in the fund as of July 1, 2010 for “other public safety uses” but the items requested had to be sent to the 9-1-1 Board for approval. After this approval from the 9-1-1 Board, it was slated for review from the County Commissioners and was subsequently approved. The funds were used for public safety needs. These funds are audited every year and the 9-1-1 Board will increase or decrease the amounts PSAP’s receive according to their usage. Chairman Blackley requested the PSCC Board be notified the next time the 9-1-1 Board makes changes that affect the 911 fund. He said this was an item of interest to the agencies on the PSCC Board and most of them found out about the money and distribution through the news media. The members of the PSCC Board would prefer to find out about these items of interest before the news media. Chairman Blackley asked if there were any funds left of the one-time use that could be shared by other agencies in the County since they are public safety agencies as well. Andre’ informed him there were no funds left; they were either spent or encumbered as of now. Several agencies on the PSCC Board were not happy with the way this money was distributed and how the disbursement was handled. Chairman Blackley asked if they could get an update at each meeting of the funds available and what it was spent on as of each meeting. Warren stated that was possible. Donnie Hall asked if they could be provided with a copy of the requested budget for the upcoming year so the PSCC Board could review it and make any recommendations if there was a priority the Board thinks that it needs to be added or amended. Warren stated they would be sent with the current meeting minutes. Chairman Blackley asked if there were any other items under New Business. Donna Smith stated that Gregory Barr from the Army Corps of Engineers had requested approval to have Wilmington PD talkgroups in their radios. Warren Lee said the Army Corps of Engineers would have to complete the required Talkgroup Authorization form and return it to Wilmington Police Department for approval signatures and they would forward it to the Board through Lynn who would ensure that it was included on the next agenda following receipt. OTHER ITEMS AND REPORTS 9-1-1 Center Chairman Blackley asked Warren to update everyone on the 911 Center. Warren stated funds had been approved to purchase the remaining five CAD, telephone and radio consoles for the 911 Center. These five new consoles will complete the 21 positions in the Center. This will be beneficial when additional staff are needed to meet demand during hurricanes and other major incidents and will allow for better training of new employees. Warren advised the Committee that all New Hanover County public safety agencies except Ogden-New Hanover Rescue had completed their analog to digital equipment upgrades. He said the analog to digital patches are still in place on the 911 Center consoles and need to be taken down in order to free up resources on the system. He said he would work with Wireless Communications to determine which talkgroup patches could be eliminated. Debora informed everyone that on February 23, they had a telecommunicator supervisor meeting and one of the items discussed was the heavy traffic on WPD Westside. They have over 5,000 transmissions per 12 hour shift and that is too much for one telecommunicator. The 911 supervisors are concerned that an officer may get hurt because the telecommunicators aren’t able to keep up with the high volume of traffic at certain times of the day, such as at bar closing times. Donny Williams said they have talked about this and one of their ideas was to split some of the traffic over to Special Ops or put on Bravo channel. He will bring this up with his supervisors and let everyone know what is decided. Debora stated that another item of concern was that UNC-W had recently been using alert tones at night to notify their officers of certain traffic. The problem with the tones is that they block off some of the UNC-W personnel’s transmissions. Captain Cynthia Deacon said they will have UNC-W call in to the telecommunicator rather than try to talk on the radio over the alert tones. Warren said they have a new class of telecommunicators that will start on March 8. They all participated in the new “Criti-Call” testing they have in place. Brunswick County has recently gotten funding to purchase 800 MHz radios and will join the State’s VIPER network. Warren will work with Wireless Communications to develop a plan to program several of Brunswick and Pender’s talkgroups on one of New Hanover’s two existing VIPER consolettes. This will allow 911 Center personnel to patch together talkgroups at the console level. Additional training will be provided. Chairman Blackley asked if anyone had anything else to discuss. Chairman Blackley adjourned at 10:45am.